Nichols v. Noom Inc.

Background

Defendants Noom, Inc. and Artem Petakov asked the court to redact and seal two portions of the January 29, 2021 hearing transcript, identified at transcript pages 26:5–7 and 26:17. According to the request, plaintiffs’ counsel had recited confidential refund and financial data that Noom had produced during discovery. The request stated that the data involved confidential user information, refund information, usage information, and revenue information.

Legal standard and arguments

The request relied on the framework described in Lugosch v. Pyramid Co. of Onondaga and Bernstein v. Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP. Under that framework, the court considers whether the material is a judicial document, evaluates the strength of the public-access interest, and balances that interest against competing interests such as privacy.

Noom did not dispute that the hearing transcript was a judicial document. It argued, however, that the specific information at issue came from discovery and had been shared for purposes of mediation, making the public-access interest comparatively low. Noom also argued that the information was highly sensitive, closely guarded, competitively important, and covered by the parties’ protective order. It contended that public disclosure could harm Noom and give competitors an unfair advantage. Noom requested only narrow redactions of the identified information.

Ruling

The court agreed that the transcript should be redacted, but only to the limited extent proposed by the defendants. Judge Katharine H. Parker directed the defendants to submit the Southern District of New York’s Redaction Request Form to the court reporter as soon as practicable. The court also stated that the parties could appeal to the court if an additional order granting the redaction request became necessary.